.png)
Country Time Negros
I have not heard Beyoncé's country album and know absolutely nothing about Shaboozey. And that’s not because I have anything against them. I just can’t stand straight up country music, no matter how hip hop-infused the genre has become.
You’d think I’d be a huge country music fan, having grown up in Arizona during the ’70s and ’80s, where hick jams were practically part of the air we breathed. In fact, the biggest and most popular gay bar in town was a full-on country joint, where queens would get all purtied up in Stetson hats, ropers, and spray-on Wrangler jeans. They’d two-step, line-dance, and Achy-Breaky their hearts out, all while hoping to saddle up and ride off into their own version of Bareback Mountain before the night was over.
We Black folks generally don’t mess with country music like that—but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a little bit of country all shut up in our bones, especially if your people came up from the South. Just look at the Gap Band from Tulsa or Teddy Pendergrass, whose South Carolina roots practically had him born in a Stetson. Both of them rocked cowboy hats like they were part of the uniform. And if you go back far enough, you’ll find that folks from my grandma’s generation listened almost exclusively to Country and Western before genres like R&B and rock ’n’ roll even hit the airwaves.
In this section, I’m zeroing in on Black artists from the Soul and R&B worlds who dared to dip a pointy-toed boot into country waters. So you won’t find hybrid acts like Ben Harper or Tracy Chapman here, and definitely no Black artists who went full-on country like Darius Rucker. While most of these R&B artists knew better than to release their country forays as singles, I’ve always thought it took real guts to color outside the genre lines—especially since R&B fans can be some of the least forgiving listeners out there.
5. "I Ain’t Gonna Stand for It” by Stevie Wonder
What makes country music so much fun is the lyrics. The best songs are full of double entendres, playful wordplay, innuendo, and metaphor—clever ways to spin a story. Stevie’s supposed to be mad about some man “pickin’ in [his] cherry tree” and “rubbin’ on [his] good luck charm,” but you can tell he’s having way too much fun singing those lines to be truly upset. Meanwhile, Hank DeVito works his usual magic on the steel guitar, and two-thirds of the cowboy hat–rocking Wilson brothers from the Gap Band drop in with some perfectly whiskey-soaked background vocals.
Fun fact: anti-vaxxer and part-time flip-floppy racist Eric Clapton—who actually does a decent take on British country his owndamnedself—covered “I Ain’t Gonna Stand for It” in 2001. Weirdly enough, it only charted in Poland. Go figure.
4. "Fairytale" by The Pointer Sisters
The only reason “Fairytale” isn’t number one on this list is because, for the Pointer Sisters, breaking boundaries wasn’t nothin' but a thang—especially in the 1970s. This is the song that earned them an invitation to perform at the Grand Ole Opry—almost completely off-limits to Black artists not named Charley Pride—and won them the Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group in 1974. That made them the first all-female vocal group to ever win a Grammy in that category, and the first Black artists to win in the notorious exclusive category of country—nearly 50 years before Beyoncé would do the same.
The song itself is clever, solemn, and country to its core. Keep in mind, this is the same group that had Black folks dancing in the aisles just a year earlier with the funky “Yes We Can Can.” So for them to pivot into country wasn’t just impressive—it was effortless. That kind of genre-jumping versatility deserves way more credit than it usually gets in the official annals of modern music.
3. “Where Do I Put His Memory” by Gladys Knight and the Pips
If you let her, Gladys will go country on yo’ ass real quick. 1974’s “Better You Go Your Way” is full of twang, and “Sorry Doesn’t Always Make It Right” is another country stunner. Even solo Gladys got in on the action when she covered Lee Ann Womack’s (no relation to Bobby) country smash “I Hope You Dance” in 2013—so clearly, she knows her way around a saloon. But her most inspired country moment has to be “Where Do I Put His Memory”, one of a dozen Jim Weatherly songs Gladys and the Pips recorded over the course of their career. That song is so heartbreakingly good, it almost made me dig through my closet for my 10-gallon hat and start doing shots of Jack Daniels—just like I did back in junior high school.
2. “Copper Kettle” by Bobby Womack
I’m not going to go into it all here, but Bobby Womack’s entire life was basically a big ole country record, so it makes perfect sense that he dipped into some country-fried material from time to time—like the delightful “Ruby Dean” off his masterful "Understanding" album. We’ve even seen photos of Womack in a cowboy hat, smoking a pipe on horseback—this, despite having grown up in the brutal Cleveland ghetto of the 1950s, where folks were more likely to kill and eat a horse’s gizzard than ride one for fun.
“Copper Kettle” is Womack’s most country-fied cut; it could’ve easily been a hit for Waylon Jennings—or even Bo or Luke Duke. But it’s Bobby’s broken-whiskey-bottle vocals that make this one feel tailor-made for his jagged, soulful delivery. A true gem from a solid album: 1974’s "Lookin’ for a Love Again."
1. “Sail On” by The Commodores
When I first conceptualized this Top 5, there was no doubt in my mind that a Lionel-led morsel would take the top spot. The only question was: which of his many tender vittles would make the cut? “My Love”? “Stuck on You”? “Deep River Woman”? (Psyche! There was never a world where the corny-ass “Deep River Woman” was getting anywhere near this list.) As much as I adore those other tracks, the crown has to go to “Sail On”—a hickory-smoked ballad that actually charted higher on the Hot 100 (No. 4) than on the R&B chart (No. 8).
I could go on about the sweet piano intro, the way the verses build into that sweeping chorus, and the tobacky-dripped harmony vocals—but what seals the deal is this golden stanza:
“It was plain to see that-ah / Small town boy like me just-ah / Wasn’t your cup uh tea I was / Wishful thankin’.”
If the CMAs didn’t shower Lionel with golden donkey statuettes after that, then Beyoncé shouldn’t feel at all bad about her country snubs in 2024.